Blood for the Unborn
Disc-shaped red blood cells like these travel from a pregnant mammal’s bloodstream into the placenta, where they can transfer oxygen to the fetus during its development. These are individual red blood cells in a mouse placenta.
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Disc-shaped red blood cells like these travel from a pregnant mammal’s bloodstream into the placenta, where they can transfer oxygen to the fetus during its development. These are individual red blood cells in a mouse placenta.
What am I looking at?
This image shows red blood cells (1) moving from a pregnant mouse’s bloodstream into the placenta to provide oxygen for the developing fetus. You can also see trophoblasts in grey (2) and the nuclei of cells in the surrounding tissue in yellow (3).
Biology in the background
Red blood cells carry essential oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body using a protein called hemoglobin. Red blood cells are unusual because they do not have nuclei. During pregnancy, oxygenated blood from the parent travels into the placenta, where it can transfer oxygen to the fetus.
A human red blood cell is about 8 micrometers across, or roughly 10 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
Technique
This image was created using fluorescence microscopy.
Derek Sung, University of Pennsylvania